“It’s time to buy an Apple computer. Indeed, it’s been that time for the past five years, at least, but only now, slowly, are people waking up to this fact. Thanks to Apple’s relentless flash — the John Hodgman ads, the iPods, the iPhones — its Macintosh business is now in league with that of the biggest PC companies in the world. Everyone who’s used it agrees that Leopard, the operating system that Apple released late last month, is to its chief rival, Microsoft’s Windows Vista, roughly as Richard Wagner is to Richard Marx. This simple truth is dawning: If we forget about computer-industry network effects and monopolistic business practices, if we forget Apple’s various ancient missteps — if we’re going just by what’s better — the ages-old Mac-vs.-PC debate is over. Long over. Yell it from the rooftops: The Mac has won,” Farhad Manjoo writes for Salon.
“Even though you may pay a slight premium at the cash register for a Mac over a comparable Windows PC (a premium that gets slighter all the time), it will cost you less money — real, honest-to-goodness American dollars — to own that Mac than to own that PC,” Manjoo writes.
Resale Value
“Macs fetch far more on the aftermarket than do PCs — and after years of use, you can offset that cash-register premium by selling your Mac for a better price than you could your PC,” Manjoo writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Compare Macs to PCs with similar specs and you just might be surprised how competitive Apple’s Mac prices are today. Plus, only Apple Macs are OS-unlimited and can run the world’s largest software library.
finally. MS and their buddies in crime have finally felt the effects of true innovation…
I tell friends, associates, and relatives alike: Even if you feel you MUST use MS Windows, at least run it on the finest PC made: the Macintosh.
Slowly–BUT SURELY–everyone is coming around. All I have to do is boot my Santa Rosa MacBook Pro into Vista (4GB memory, 2.4GHz), and their eyes pop out of their heads.
Fastest machine on the market, most beautiful, most flexible, AND cost-competitive. Only a complete and utter FOOL would buy a Vaio, Dell, HP, Toshiba, or the like after that.
Boot into Vista? Bah. I run XP Pro on my 2.8GHZ iMac. Virtualized. Son-in-law says it’s faster than anything he’s had his hands on.
Comparisons to Dell and HP are really irrelevant. Mac’s may cost more or less for equivalent specs, but Macs come with Mac OS X and the others come with Windows Vista. And the comparison grinds to a halt right there. I would gladly pay the premium for a Mac, but since Macs have far better resale value and today’s Macs are priced competitively, the deal is all the more sweeter…
Since Apple competitors are stuck with Vista for the next 5 years (or more), I don’t know how they are going to compete. Apple becoming the top PC maker is inevitable.
@gwm
Yes, boot into Vista! Virtualization is certainly fast on the Santa Rosa MacBook Pro (2.4GHz) using Parallels, but not AS FAST when booted natively.
When one wants to show WinFanBoys that the Mac is the finest PC on the market today, one doesn’t boot into Mac and then switch into Vista. One starts with what THEY already know. It has been my experience lately that we have to win these poor souls’ hearts and minds one step at a time, hence the approach described above.
First the PC argument. THEN the switch to Mac!
I’m planning to buy a new laptop in next few months. I have compared the prices and specs of Macs and PC’s. I can’t understand how people can say that Macs aren’t more expensive than PC’s.
In Europe: The specs of 1249€ Macbook are very similar to 700€-900€ PC-laptop. The specs of 2399€ Macbook Pro are very similar to 1200€-1400€ PC-laptop. One thousand euros is a little too much for the Mac OSX and Apple premium. I really do like Macs more than PC’s, but the price difference is just too much.
Welcome to 2002, Salon. Please to be catching up soon.
@ Terry
With any computer hardware you pay for what you get.
You can go into any computer store and buy a cheap brand laptop for £300, but within 6 months it will be dead.
You may think macs are more expensive but you havent considered the other things you get for free with ALL macs:
– iLife Suite (Best entertainment software suite in the world)
– Intuitive and innovative OS and gui
– NO VIRUS’S, malware
– Simple to use connectivity to ANY computer (and OS) on any network
– Rock solid build quality
– Global award winning hardware and software design
– iTunes in its native envirnoment (how it was intended to be used!)
Overall the average mac user keeps their mac for many years and even major OS upgrades (like Leopard) run fast on old macs. You try installing Vista on a 7yr old windows pc… (good luck!)
And this is what you get with a low cost windows pc;
– Bad compter build quality
– Every virus or malware you ever wanted!
– Sub-standard internal components and parts
– Poorly designed OS (courtesy of Microsoft)
– Complex network connectivity
– No IiLife software suite!
I know which computer I would buy – even IF it was (alleged to be more expensive)
Terry,
the point is that there are not low-cost assembled Macs.
If you compare a Mac to a Dell, HP or Sony Vaio with similar specs, you’ll be surprised. That premium in many cases disappears.
Also, consider the resale value….
Believe me, the “Macs cost more” era is over…
Terry, the dollar is dropping, which, at least for non-US consumers this is apparently a short term good thing.. so let’s hope that fact is reflected in Euro pricing soon.
OZZ,
My previous PC-laptop prices are from HP, Fujitsu Siemens and Acer. Maybe they aren’t as good as Apple, but not a “low-cost assembled” anyway.
My point is that the prices of PC-laptops have come down very much in Europe this year (average price about 800€, maybe 90% of laptops are below 1500€ price point). About one year ago Macbook was very comparable to PC-laptops in specs and in price, but it’s a different situation now. PC-laptops have come down in price, while Apple has kept its’ old price points.
Shout this from the rootops: Macs cost too much so Windows is way better. Entry cost is the ONLY factor anyone should consider when making a computer purchase.
The war is over, folks. Microsoft won, Apple lost.
Your potential. Our passion.™
P.S. The Zune is cheaper too. Dorks.
when my dad was thinking of switching, I went on the Dell website to show him how much one with the same spec as the lowest priced iMac would cost.
It was over £200 more, plus the Dell isn’t an all in one.
And Dells are fugly
MDN magic word: already, as in we already knew what this article is saying
Tipping Point®.
I hear horror stories of people and malware and viruses regularly and then i cringe at the price they paid BuyMore to fix it…ouch!
Spend the extra $ on a mac instead of malware and virus protection and enjoy the computer for what it was meant to be, enjoyable.
I spent about $2500 on the last PowerBook G4, used it for nearly 2 years and sold it for $1000. Not a bad return.
Before the Intel shift, I sold an equivalent PowerBook G4 for $1500 after 2 years.
It’s a no-brainer that Macs are both the superior and most economical choice. One would think the Windoze sufferers would realize this, as it really does require no brains to comprehend.
As usual, most PC users don’t want to admit that their platform is inferior and insecure. I spent FOUR hours last night running scans and cleaning out someone’s PC. It found well over 100 pieces of malware.
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After running numerous products, the system felt 50% better (well, it was an older P3).
I’ll stick with my high-priced-selling Mac any day. You can’t give me those 4 hours back (but I am getting paid). 😀
MW: Price (go figure) – With Windows, you ultimately pay the price.
P.S., Zune Tang is so d@#n funny! His posts always make my day. ROTFLMAO!
Microsoft PURPOSELY kept Windows insecure to:
1: Reward IT for recommending it’s products by giving them work “fixing” Windows insecurities.
2: Allow the snoops to monitor.
3: Create the anti-malware industry which in turn creates processor hogging code which tricks people to upgrading prematurely which helps Microsoft and their hardware partners.
4: Allows Microsoft to provide “security updates” to install more bloatcode and monitor illegal sales of it’s software.
Mac’s have higher resale value than PC’s because THEY FUNCTION LONGER THAN PC’s on the Internet.
Without bloated processor hogging anti-malware needing to be run to fix Windows problems, the Mac and Mac OS X can sail along at pretty much the same speed 5 to 7 years later than the day the machine was bought. Provided one doesn’t upgrade the OS, software updates excluded of course.
So this allows people to get maximum value out of their third party software purchases. For instance people I know bought the $800 Adobe Package; Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign etc and still working on it many years later.
With Windows people would have had to upgrade many times because of security issues and bloatware slowing down all applications.
I haven’t seen a writer use that many comas and hyphens in a sentence in a long time!
MW: felt-I felt run on!
Comment from: ken1w
<i>Since Apple competitors are stuck with Vista for the next 5 years (or more), I don’t know how they are going to compete. Apple becoming the top PC maker is inevitable.<i>
They can’t compete. When SJ moved to an open source version of Unix for his operating system foundation at NeXT, he assured the scalability of his operating system to handle the fabulous user experience oriented frameworks called NextStep. Microsoft left in its rotten underpinnings and most of the crappy frameworks from ancient times. Windows does not scale. When SJ came back to Apple and staged a rescue and then moved the essence of NextStep to Mac OS X, It was game over man, game over. It just took a little time to pay off.
And I bet the farm on AAPL — five figures, accounting for splits. And that is shares, not dollars.
Microsoft makes it money selling a operating system and Office mostly.
So the more turnover it can generate, the more profit it can make and the more powerful it can become.
This is why Microsoft is the monster it is today.
Apple on the other hand doesn’t make a whole lot off it’s OS, rather selling hardware with the OS is the eye candy paint job.
So Apple does want to make more money selling it’s OS, but not at the expense of hardware sales which are more profitable.
I think a lot of people are afraid to trust just one company for their hardware and OS choice.
Given the trend of glossy screens by Apple, I kind of agree with them. But at least one can buy a used Mac and it will still be very reliable.
“”Macs fetch far more on the aftermarket than do PCs — and after years of use, you can offset that cash-register premium by selling your Mac for a better price than you could your PC,” Manjoo writes.”
he got it half right. Not so much a premium to buy but yes they do have great resale value.
Everyone who’s used it agrees that Leopard, the operating system that Apple released late last month, is to its chief rival, Microsoft’s Windows Vista, roughly as Richard Wagner is to Richard Marx.
Funniest thing I’ve read in ages. For those who forget or, thankfully, never knew: Richard Marx